She would follow and watch him at night as he commited a crime he was supposed to be done with. His poison infects her and she could turn and run away or she could join him. In the end, it's always her choice.

Her chocolate brown hair whipped across her face in the hot wind that was blowing, showing early signs of a sand storm. Ebony eyes, illuminated by the full moon, were locked onto a figure in the distance. Watching. Waiting.

For weeks she had done this. Watched him as he committed the crime. A crime that everyone believed he was done with. Bloodshed was something no one could ever leave, she believed. Not after you have lived with it your entire life. Not when it was the only thing you knew.

She should have been angry at him, furious even. He had changed for the better. Or so everyone was led to believe. She knew the truth though, she knew that sometimes the bloodlust could become to much. Even for a strong man like him. But she couldn't hate him or be angry. Why?

He was the kazekage wasn't he? So why was he doing this, taking the lives of the innocent? Questions like that had plagued her day and night. Crowded her already clouded mind as she trained under him, learning from him.

But the answer was always there. It was what he was, what he housed in his body. The demon, that, if it could, would dance under a shower of blood, relishing in the liquid of someone's life. But, could it be him to? Could he like the bloodshed that he caused, the pain of another's.

She stared at his face. His cold blue-green eyes were staring at nothing and everything. She recalled the first night she tailed him, how his face had split into an inhuman grin while he crushed his victims into oblivion, mixing their blood with his sand.

Yes. Yes he could like it. He could even enjoy it.

His body shifted under her knowing gaze. The sand grains blowing in the wind circled around its master, anticipating the coming of the shower of innocent blood. The climax of the night was finally here.

She could sense them before she could see them. Three men from the local pub in town. He knew how to pick them. Pick the ones no one would notice were gone. They were coming down the road at a lazy pace, drawing ever nearer to their deaths. Oblivious.

She watched as he masked his presence and hid in the shadows, anticapating the coming spill of blood. Her fists clenched at her sides as she saw the men take their last steps before getting entangled in his sand.

He spoke something to them, his lips moved slowly. His voice quiet, face calm. She saw the expressions of his victims. Panic and raw fear burned through their eyes.

He killed them slowly, as if savoring the moment of death. Two died without being wholey crushed by the unforigiving sand. Only one remained alive.

Without thinking of what she as doing, she unmasked her chakra and jumped down from her perch onto the street below.

He didn't turn to her. He kept his cold gaze on the man wrapped in his sand, his hand outstretched ready to end his life.

She walked up behind him to where she was standing just behind his shoulder. Her chest almost touching his back.

The smell of the blood that covered him burned her nose. But she did not turn away or show disgust. Instead, wonder took over her expression.

"Matsuri." his deep voice made her tremble with anticapation. What she was anticipating, she didn't know.

"Gaara." she answered back in a calm voice.

He inclined his head towards her, looking at her with one of his cold eyes. Locking her in place. Her ebony eyes never wavered from his. No fear rested in her eyes, no disgust. Only wonder.

She moved her eyes from his and looked at his victim still wrapped in his sand. He was half dead, blood coming out of his mouth, eyes glassy.

The deadly sand silently began to lower him back to earth, but was stopped.

Gaara's hand was suspened in the air by one of Matsuri's smaller ones, keeping the victim elevated.

He stared at her as she looked at his hand being held in place by hers. No emotion besides the childlike wonder resided in her black eyes.

Slowly she reached up with her free hand and gently rested them on his half open fist. Her cool fingertips tracing intricate patterns on his own warm hand.

She looked back up at the man trapped in the death grip of Gaara's sand, and smiled. She slowly closed her hand that was over top of Gaara's open fist, and watched as the man was again being murdered.

Adrinaline pumped through the young girl's body as she saw the light begin to leave the eyes of the man. Quickly she fisted her hand over Gaara's, crushing the man,making the victim turn to nothing but blood.

It rained down over both of them. She felt the drops hit her and she didn't flinch away. Instead she released her hold on Gaara and smeared the blood on her cheek. Making her look like she just came out of a war.

She turned to face Gaara and found him staring at her with something different in his gaze. Again the feral grin stretched across his face.

"You killed someone." his deep voice vibrating through her body, making heat rise in the bottom of her stomach.

"And I enjoyed it." her eyes flashed with excitement as she stated the sin.

She didn't know how it happened and didn't care. He was standing in front of her one moment, and then the next, he had her pinned against a back alley wall. She didn't care because for the life of her, no matter what this man did or how he acted, she was irrevocably in love with him. She had been since the moment she saw him accept her as his student. That was why she couldn't hate him.

Her wrists were locked against the wall on either side of her head by his own hands, his face a mere hairs breadth away from her own. His light colored eyes shined bright with uncontrolld exictiement, amusement, . . . and desire.

Her coal black eyes stared at him, not even trying to mask her own desire.

"How long." his gaze holding her eyes to his. Like she would look away anyway.

"Long enough." she stated in a firm voice.

He quirked a brow and gave her a quizzical look.

"Everyone kills. Even I do now, and find that I like it, and i'd do again. As long as your there with me."

She lifted her chin in a diffiant manner and her nose brushed his. He gave her a hard look and lowered his head to her ear.

"Once your allowed in my heart, there is no going back." he whispered seductively in her ear.

"Wouldn't dream of turning back on you." she answered him in a low voice of her own.

With the words barely out of her mouth, his lips locked with her own in an unrelenting kiss. Where his body and skin was pressed against her, it burned. But in a way that she welcomed it.

And every night after that, after the commiting of a deadly sin, she would welcome his burning touch without a second thought. Because she loved him. And though he never spoke it out loud, she knew he felt the same.

She would never turn her back on him.

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